Want to build your email list? Market your newest publication?
The most reliable way to succeed as an author is to build up an email list of fans. You want to attract readers to your website, and hopefully get them to sign up to your email list. (If you have no idea what to offer, watch this video).

But that can't happen unless your readers are finding your site. There are two easy ways to get more traffic. The first is by posting a lot of key-word rich content on your website (here's another video about that). The other is to post content on other high-traffic blogs in a similar field and get backlinks. That tells Google your site is relevant.

That's why people do author interviews or blog tours: even if readers don't see the content, Google finds the links and will identify a "blog network" around a specific topic. The more links you have from similar blogs in your field, the better you will rank in Google.

Guest posting is ideal, if you pick very clever article titles that appeal to your target readers, but I want to start out by doing something super easy.

So I've set up "author interview" forms on three of my websites. All you have to do is fill in the form and submit the info (it'll take 10 minutes). I'll post it as a blog post with a live link back to your website. There are 741 of you, so this is the fastest way to give a quick boost in traffic to everybody. (Plus, having that much related content on the same site will bring more traffic to each interview).

Also, I can help you find other authors writing similar YA books that you can team up with. Meanwhile, I'll be building up the traffic and SEO of these sites by doing guest posts and author interviews myself (which will increase the power of the links back to your site).

Here are the three blogs I'll be using to build a powerful blog network around YA fiction. They don't have much content yet, but I'm going to build them quickly and then start posting regularly. (You can pick one or do an interview for all three if applicable).

So basically, my plan is to keep growing traffic on these sites with lots of great content that attracts YA readers, and letting you post on these sites for a boost in visibility and more traffic on your own site.

If you want to help that process, you can add any of these links to your sidebar. Most bloggers have a "friends" or "recommended sites" section there. Or, you can wait until your author interviews are posted and then share those.

Thanks, Derek Murphy

I'm a designer, writer and fine artist working on my PhD in Literature. My wife and I travel full-time and love history, adventure, and luxury. I mostly help writers publish better books, but also share tips, strategies and resources to help creative people turn their passions into full-time businesses, make a bigger impact, and blaze a luminous trail of creative independence.

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Fiction Writing Tools

This site offers inspirational writing tips, along with awesome advice on self-editing, author marketing, and book promotion for fiction writers!

Even if you've already published a few books or you're just starting out in the indie publishing world, there's always more to learn on the craft of writing fiction and book promotion.

If you're determined to take your writing career seriously and make it to the next level, you need to make sure that your author branding and book packaging are "genre specific" to hit your target audience and build a loyal readership.

Fiction writers looking for advanced creative writing techniques and help with marketing, please bookmark this blog. I support self-published and indie authors!